'And this victor is our quiet-looking Allan Mac Innon,' said Laura, her eyes beaming with a pleasure that intoxicated me.
'He is a regular trump!' added the Captain, with manly honesty, although he had been beaten.
'He looks so calm and demure,' continued Miss Everingham, 'no one would have thought it was—it was——'
'It was in him,' suggested Clavering, squibbing off his rifle; 'why don't you become a soldier, Mac Innon—there is good stuff in you—'pon my soul, I like you immensely! don't you, Miss Everingham?'
At this absurd question, Laura coloured to her temples, and grew pale again.
'Well—aw,' began Mr. Snobleigh, who looked irritated and discomfited; 'I aw—nevaw saw such shooting certainly—beats Jerningham of ours, and he as the world knows, was matched—aw—aw—twenty-five pigeons—aw—against you, Clavering, for fifty sovereigns a-side; but I'll back these 'Ighland fellows against all England—aw.'
Now came the most exciting and, to me, humiliating part of the proceedings—the distribution of the first and second prizes for shooting.
Though poor, crushed and bruised by biting poverty, I could not, without an emotion of shame, accept the hundred sovereigns from the hand of Laura Everingham, and decline the more suitable gift of a silver cup, which was the alternative, in the case of a gentleman being the victorious competitor! Now in my inmost heart I felt that a poor and proud gentleman was the most miserable of all God's creatures. Clavering's words, 'why don't you become a soldier?' were ever in my ears; but the thought of my old and dying parent, of whom I was the only prop and stay, stifled the more fiery energy that rose within me; and as we drew near the little covered platform, where the élite of the spectators were grouped around that beautiful but stony-hearted Duchess, the canting Marquis, the two Countesses, Sir Horace and others of their privileged order, I felt my spirit sink as if I was a very slave.
Here also stood Mr. Ephraim Snaggs, bearing on a silver salver two purses beautifully embroidered. One was by the hands of Miss Everingham, and contained the hundred sovereigns; the other was by her friend, and contained the fifty.
While crimsoned by mortification, I heard my name pronounced, and found myself before Sir Horace, who, as the newspapers said, "in a choice, neat, and appropriate speech," duly emphasised in the true Oxford fashion, announced that I was the victor of the shooting-match, and entitled to the first prize—my companion to the second.